Gnome 3.8 Released

The new Gnome release includes privacy and sharing settings, allowing more user control over access to personal information.

The Gnome Project has officially released Gnome 3.8. According to the website, this latest version provides new features, fixes, and improvements and is the outcome of six months of effort by Gnome developers and their partners and contains 35,936 contributions by approximately 960 people.

Gnome 3.8 includes new privacy and sharing settings that let users control who can access content on their computer, how much personal information is displayed, and whether activity-tracking features should be enabled. Newly added OwnCloud integration additionally lets users track activities and protect personal information.

Gnome 3.8 also includes a new view for launching applications. The “Frequent” tab shows the most commonly used applications, and the “All” tab shows all of your applications to make it easier to find them. Gnome’s web browser also has been enhanced to provide a faster web experience, and animation rendering has been improved for smooth transitions and window resizing.

The latest release now comes with Gnome Classic, which offers a more traditional desktop experience. According to the website, Gnome Classic configures the desktop to include popular Gnome 2 features but provides the underlying power of Gnome 3 technologies.